Feet First
by Astronautics
Summary: Most of the crew - not to mention your fellow jarheads - will be leaving the ship in lifeboats. They'll ride to the surface in air conditioned comfort, sipping wine, and nibbling on appetizers. Not you, however.


**AN: Hey, guys. This is a first time, work in progress kind of thing. All kinds of criticism welcome, so don't forget to leave a review. Thanks!**

How come it had been so easy to look at the mission objectives and volunteer for this crap? Taking down an Insurrectionist base with stealth seemed like a challenge in the eyes of an ODST, even after surviving the Covenant and the Flood at the Ark. So much planning had come before this operation though, which was the slightly embarrassing bit; Eclipse had been in the briefing room every day for a week, at least three hours a day working out strategies, weak points and blind spots. They were lucky for the high quality intelligence that they had been supplied with, yet now none of it seemed to matter.

Bullets flew over Amy's head, painting the wall in front of her with bullet holes in the steel. She was residing in a small office, facing a door but sitting in cover with her back to a window. Through the window, several lightly armoured civilians were taking cover behind decorative, three foot high walls and wooden benches. Compared to the building itself, the park area was quite elaborate and outstanding. This surprised Amy, as she didn't expect the Insurrection to have kept the garden so tidily, gaining a raised eyebrow from behind her visor as she thought about it. Suddenly, her mind returned to the situation at hand, the loud rattling of gunfire coming into earshot once more.

"I repeat. I am pinned down over in Sector Alpha. Units, respond, over." she called helplessly, aiming at the door as if to protect herself from intruders. A strange, distorted crackle sounded over the COMM, like someone coughing over static.

"Royal. This is Sceptre. I'm wounded but-"

The voice was cut off by a long string of coughs and splutters, before some heavy breathing, "Janey has me covered here. We're directly above you, two floors between us."

"Alright. Can you manage a grenade into the courtyard, Sceptre?" Amy asked, worried of her comrade's health. She clutched her M7S tightly, waiting for the response. She waited, but the first thing she heard was cries outside. One voice sounded extremely like he was shouting "Grenade!" It was obvious that Amy had heard right when the gunfire stopped and a large explosion came from behind her. Screams and orders flew around, but the gunfire didn't even scratch her BDU as she crashed through the door and rolled to the left, out of the doorway. From there she got to her feet and sprinted to the staircase a dozen or so feet away.

Amy took to the stairs, screaming up them with extreme speed, three at a time. She passed one floor after three seconds of travelling upwards, coming to the second floor a few seconds afterwards. Her HUD picked up the IFF tags of her allies. Surprising, actually. The radar jammer had seemingly messed with their HUDs earlier on. That would explain why Sceptre had managed to get a hold of her over the COMMs: He was directly above her, so not much distance. It was still odd that their IFFs hadn't registered though.

"Friendly entering, watch your fire." Amy warned, showing her gloved right hand at the top of the doorway before entering and seeing the wounded soldier laying in a pool of his own crimson blood, "Jesus. What happened, Ste?"

Steven, whose call sign was currently Sceptre, was bleeding badly. Three bullet holes were burned into his right thigh, with fresh, red blood oozing out of them. He also had a blackened, charred chest plate which was bent out of shape in some areas, mainly around the collarbones. Amy raised her eyebrows in disbelief, yet smiling at his survival.

"He took three bullets and a frag." Janey mused, returning fire on the Insurrection in the courtyard. Only three or four remained now, but they had gained some sense and were moving out of the place which was practically sudden death for them, with a shot like J above them.

"You stubborn fucker." Amy chuckled, shaking her helmeted head slowly. She kneeled down beside him and took a canister of biofoam from the kit which rested on her left thigh. The noise of the biofoam spraying was no match for Sceptre's loud grunts of pain. He was obviously chewing off his tongue after the nozzle and the cold attacked his wounds. He grunted a few more times, suppressing his screams as he was carefully stood up out of the way of the window by Amy.

"J. We're leaving. Where are the others?"

"They're still out of contact, ma'am." Janey shrugged, moving from the open window and reloading her M6C SOCOM in a flash, "I presume they are still in the bowels of this place."

"Damnit. They best hurry up. We need to get Ste-" Amy said, cut off by a clear masculine voice in her ear.

"We got the jammer down and the charges set, ma'am. We're working our way to Sector Bravo's roof. Out."

"Good God that was good timing. J. I need you to cover us as we move." Amy said, tossing her M7S to J as she took her own M6C SOCOM from her thigh. She moved out of the door: First her Magnum, then her, and finally Sceptre. He winced a few times along the way back to the staircase, but managed to keep quiet. They were surprised to see nothing in their paths, making a clean run up to the roof. Janey shoulder-barged through the metal door at the top of the staircase, her borrowed M7S poking around through the doorway. Amy followed her out into the night sky, lit only by the four floodlights surrounding the compound. From here, the two remaining ODSTs, Greaves and Flint, were visible, one of whom was waving his arms to get attention. Amy held up her armed hand and waved back. Flint halted his actions and looked around the area. Though confused, the others followed suit. A small noise could be heard. A strong wind in the distance, maybe? It was oddly disturbing, and when they discovered what it was they all hit the deck.

Two Hornets rose from behind the radio tower at the opposite end of the compound. One turned towards Flint and Greaves, the other towards the women and Ste. Rounds flew everywhere, the undertrained pilots letting fire off at pretty much anything they could find. Their point of fire changed, rounds sometimes hitting close to the ODSTs, but mostly a dozen or so feet away. As Amy dragged Ste back to the roof entrance, she noticed that Janey had dropped the M7S and was now aiming her SRS99D-S2 AM at the cockpit of the Hornet firing on them. A loud crack sounded, and a round pierced the armour just above the cockpit. Anyone at any distance could see the panic on the pilots face as the bullet ricocheted off of the craft, nudging it the opposite way. Once again, a loud crack sounded out, but instead of the bullet hitting the armour, it cracked the glass of the cockpit and splattered blood on it. Almost immediately, Janey aimed to the right, looking to hit the remaining Hornet before her kill hit the floor.

Instead of being dragged downstairs, Sceptre had been left behind an air duct which provided excellent cover. Amy looked around cautiously, crazily sprinting back to reach her M7S. She grabbed it and laughed at herself in awe. She shot for half a second, before she realised what was happening. It was obvious what was happening. Amy shouted inside her helmet in a helpless attempt to save her teammates. The ODSTs on the roof of Sector Alpha all watched together as the rockets left the Hornet's rocket pods. They hit the middle of the building, causing it to buckle and cripple. The top portion slid off of the bottom like butter off a plate. The two ODSTs fell forward, hurtling toward the ground, followed by a mixture of rubble, glass and bits of furniture.

"Greaves? Flint? Answer me, damnit!" Amy shouted, ignoring Janey's killer shot which took out the Hornet a just second too late. She bounded down the stairs, letting off the remainder of her clip into a pair of soldiers advancing with tiny M6A Magnums. They didn't even manage to fire a single shot before being ripped apart by the SMG. The weapon was reloaded quickly, the weapon ready for use as soon as Amy hit the bottom floor. She took to the door in front of her heavily, bashing through and finishing three Insurrectionist soldiers with a few rounds to spare. She heard groaning and static in her ear, but she kept on going.

The ODST took down another door, which was labelled 'Sector B'. Amy moved through it and saw cables hanging from the roof. One snapped at her with electricity as she passed it, but it was easily ignored. She continued to the end of the corridor and span on her foot with increasing speed. It was now that she could see the real damage, as huge pieces of metal and concrete slabs littered this Sector's courtyard. Amy jumped through an empty window frame, seeing the tags 'FLNT' and "GRVS'. They were fairly close, and not under any large pieces of debris. Her helmet was ripped off and tossed on the floor as she approached them further.

"You shouldn't have." Flint croaked, looking at her from under a small piece of metal. Behind her, she heard rustling, attracting the attention of her reticle. She saw Greaves stand and dust himself off, before returning to Flint's situation. She placed the M7S over her shoulder and waited till she heard the satisfying, metallic click, before bending over and lifting the piece of metal. The inch thick plate was heavier than expected, but was moved rather easily.

"Eclipse, this is Delta One-Niner-Niner, ready to get you out of here. Stay there, and we shall come to you and your wounded, Captain."

A great load was lifted off of Amy's chest, as she saw the Pelican slowly descending towards them.

"Thank fuck you're here." Amy smiled, picking up Flint's body as carefully as possible.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

The past few days had been ever so relaxing. Earth was pretty much back in shape now, what with the absence of the Covenant. The only real threats were the Insurrection. Each branch didn't last too long, however, as elite troops were sent to deal with them.

An hour ago, Amy had woken, showered and dressed. Breakfast didn't seem to important this morning. She had eaten quite a meal last night, taking pretty much everything off of Janey's plate. There wasn't much to attend to today. Eclipse wasn't exactly at full strength at this point in time, due to both Ste and Flint spending long days in the infirmary of _The Optical_.

Delta-One-Nine-Nine's pilot had flown them straight out of the combat zone in Northern Russia, taking them directly to the Frigate they were currently residing on. _The Optical_was a decent ship: Great facilities, friendly crew. Even the Captain of the ship, Christopher Darriant, was a nice guy, minus the infrequent rages he sometimes broke out with.

"Captain Lorelli and the standing members of Eclipse, please report to the Bridge."

Amy span on her heel and casually continued walking, on her way to the bridge. She was close by, so it was only two minutes before she was standing and saluting in front of Darriant.

"Your fellow squad mates, Lorelli?" the Navy Captain asked arrogantly, as if to break out into one of his rages. Amy nodded her head and sighed.

"Staff Sergeant Greaves and Sergeant Kain should be here momentarily, whilst Corporals Flint and-" Amy explained, cut off by the impatient Darriant. Typical. Angry during her visit to the Bridge.

"Yes, yes."

Almost thirty seconds later, Janey and Greaves entered the Bridge, standing beside Amy and saluting.

"Sir." They chorused, with a nod of approval to stand down from Darriant.

"As you three may know, the Insurrection has become a rather big threat in the past few months. In fact, this year, there have been six reported terrorist attacks, issued by some Insurrectionist leaders." He turned around and tapped the large screen in front of him a few times, before stepping out of the way of a map of the world, "The red dots are the areas of attack."

Darriant gestured to these marked areas with an outstretched arm pointing towards them. All six of them were focused on the north coast of Austrailia.

"Australia's north coast? Big on fishing and a large supplier of food to the UNSC." Greaves pointed out, nodding towards the dots, "All along major fishing towns, at a guess."

"Indeed. You are correct." The Captain nodded, tapping on the top half of Australia on the map. It zoomed in along the North Coast, showing that each red dot marked a town with an obvious bay or port. Then, two more towns were circled, each untouched by red dots.

"These two," he said, tapping in their general area, "Kintinson and Liria, are untouched. However, we are expecting attacks there, similar to the previous six. We already have two squads of ODSTs residing in the larger of the towns: Kintinson. I want Eclipse out there next week at the latest."

Janey looked towards Amy and Greaves, then back to Darriant.

"We don't fight as a trio. Sceptre and Flint are out, so-"

"They're fine. They'll be in the gym in a day or so. I shall brief you personally nearer the time, when Eclipse is five-strong once more. You have a new member joining you too." Christopher smiled, nodding towards the door, "Dismissed."

"A word, sir?" Amy tried, as the other two left obediently.

"I dismissed you, Lorelli. Please be on your way."

She caught up with the other two as they walked and talked down the corridor. They were obviously talking about their 'new member', as the hushed tones and shaking heads didn't seem overly positive to Amy.

"Amy? You didn't know about this?" Greaves asked sardonically as he saw he approach.

"Didn't have a clue up until now. But we are lacking an ODST, like it or not, Greaves. All we need is a close quarters guy. If anything, he or she will be up close and out of our way."

"Yeah." Janey sighed, sadly letting her head fall as she headed for the gym with Greaves. Amy broke off with them with a raised hand, signalling farewell.

A new member to the squad? What could this new, hopefully close quarters guy be like? Amy was expecting typical CQC: Hugely modified armour, a couple hundred grenades and a few dozen shotgun shells showing, as well as a few knives to finish the picture. She smiled at the thought of a big ODST running into a room full of Insurgents, chewing them to pieces with his M90A and skewering them with his knives.

_It'll make our lives a whole lot easier, having Mister CQC do all the work. He won't like being put in a stealthy squad. Then again, neither did Greaves. Impatient bastard._

Her smile held when she entered her room, staying there as she lay atop her bed. Her eyes closed in an instant, and she drifted off to sleep almost instantaneously.


End file.
